Stacked stomps and effects

    The Profiler Model referred to in this thread is ...
    ☑️ Profiler Head/Rack

    Over the years I've noticed many requests to somehow increase the number of stomps and effects available. It seems limited to the physical 4 stomp buttons and 4 Effects buttons. Even fewer on the Player and clearly something Player users would hope for.

    As a possible way to get there, I'm wondering if there might be a way to make the existing slots stackable - allowing either one or two presets to be stacked on each. This could be pretty easily managed on both Rig Manager and the hardware buttons. If a given slot has only one preset then this is as things currently are. Instead of showing "COMP" or "DIST", If a slot had a second added preset, it could display as "MULT" or similar. When editing, the system could allow you to choose which of the two stacked presets to edit. This would require no major changes to the current editing screens in Rig Manager or hardware buttons. As far as toggling On/Off nothing would need to change. Turning on A would just turn on the stack, whether single or dual. Editing would look no different other than selecting between stacked presets. Order of processing would still be the same - A before B Before C. First stack of A before second stack on A, etc. Morph should still work as always. Just more morphable parameters available to play with.

    If possible, this could greatly extend our lifetime with the Kempers, effectively doubling the currently available effects. Also, it would add a really useful feature. Since both parts of a stack are controlled by a single button click, you could now do things like setting up an overdrive with an EQ or compressor to help tune it more specifically. An Echo and Reverb together freeing up slots for other things.

    Thinking further maybe the same logic could apply to the Cab button. Might be nice to be able to select either one or two cabs for a rig. I can understand where stacked Amps would probably be a step too far and maybe beyond current processing power. I have no way of knowing if the existing system can handle the extra effect load either, but I'd imagine there must be some headroom. This seems like it could be a big way to expand all the Kempers and seems possible without hardware changes, so I'd throw it out there and hope it might go somewhere.

    What do you all think?

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    Interesting idea. I don't see it being practical though. Kemper's approach to DSP allocation is to prioritize a smooth transition from Rig to Rig without an audio gap, while allowing spillover of wet effects in the delay and reverbs slots. What you describe, if I understand correctly, is you want to have additional effects available in the 8 effect slots that you could toggle between within the same Rig. From what I understand, the Kemper is currently utilizing close to the max of its available DSP.

    The easy workaround is to utilize performance mode. Simply copy and paste the Rig you are using in slot one into slot 2, or 3, or 4, or 5. Then simply place different effects (or effects presets you've created) into any of the new rig's 8 effects blocks. What you are describing isn't having more effects active at the same moment in time. In which case, why try to fit more into a single Rig when you have 5 Rigs in a performance that you can fill with different combinations of effects?

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    Hey Grooguit, I realize describing it as "extra" effects may not have been the best way. And yes, I already use Performances and morphing all the time. Some of what I describe could also be handled with a Kemper remote, assigning multiple effects to one button. Or a midi controller with some programming, etc.

    But say you want to use a few different distortions. So you put a Kemper drive in Slot B and a Kemper Fuzz in Slot D. But neither quite fits without some EQ, so you add an EQ in Slot A to help tune the Kemper drive, and another EQ in Slot C to fine tune the Kemper Fuzz. Since the EQ's are really just to fine tune each of the two distortions, you still need a way to toggle the pairs on/off together. And you've used all available Pre slots A through D to accomplish this. What I was trying to describe could help in scenarios like this.

    Other ways to get there might be to have a way to add extra parameters to a preset. The AMP module has like 15 adjustable parameters. A Kemper drive has 6, with only a single Tone control. If there were a way to "Add EQ parameters" to add bands like one of the EQ's, that could be a way to have the EQ's without taking up slots (but still technically a stack of 2 effects). All controlled by 1 button. Nothing special to set up on a Remote or controller and so on.

    Obviously, this is just one scenario and only talking about adding EQ. Could just as well be "Add Echo parameters" or "Add <some other>" parameters. II just hadn't originally thought of it as adding some parameters, although that probably is a simplified way to get the same result.

    Maybe possible and maybe not. But it seems like a way to possibly extend what's already there without hardware changes or complicated controller programming. A side effect is that it seems like having more effects available within one rig which couldn't be a bad thing, especially with something like the new Player with even fewer slots.

    Probably won't go anywhere, but I thought maybe it would spark some ideas.

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    The remote or stage makes toggling two or more blocks on and off together super easy, whether turning on or off together, or turning one off and the other in as opposites.
    What might be better, would be as you described, just more parameters. I could be wrong but don’t think the EQs take up much dsp. But for all the drives, perhaps hitting the page over button and then having their excellent 8-band as part of their drive effects, saving an effects block for something else.

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    Beyond DSP limitations, in my point of view, the main problem is the hardware.

    IMO, this proposition could easily work on PC/Tabs rig manager.

    At the begining, Head/Rack & Stage's rigs were all set on the hardware itself, rig manager was just a catalog to push rigs/FXs on the device. I assume Kemper wants to keep this ease of use on the hardware. So how do you stack/destack FXs ?

    It's easy to programm a FX per switch today ; press soft buttons, the pedal ; done.

    Do you link all the group in stomp mode ? Or How do you set the drive on/off but not the comp ?

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    One problem with digital effects processing in a serial chain is latency. If you compare the KPA to competitors, almost all of them have a latency problem. They usually have more DSP power and it works well as long as your signal is split into a parallel path or only a few effects are used. But connected in series everything ends up in latency which greatly affects the playing feel.

    Be the force with you ;)

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    This is an interesting convo. In my opinion, additional parameters such as EQ are always welcome. But as Yoda Guitar mentioned, what affect do additional parameter have on DSP? Haven't a clue. Having used the KPA for a long time now, I've settled on how I maximize things the number of things I can use simultaneously AND simplify footswitching.

    I create one rig and load with effects, activating the combination of them that I'll use most often for the particular song or just in general in Slot 1.

    I create separate Rigs (sometimes starting with copy/pastes of the 1st Rig) to use with the 1st Rig in a performance as needed. I won't ever need, using the OP's example, two drives with their own EQs active at the same moment at time, along with other effects, so I just make additional rigs to give me the adequate combinations needed.

    If I need MORE combinations of effects than these five Rigs in a performance, I use the morph state. Since I don't use an expression for morph, I always set the Morph setting to be controlled by the 5 Rig footswitches with a rise and fall of zero. Since pretty much all the effects have a mix setting, I morph this mix setting to effectively toggle effects. (Mix 0% is off, mix 100% is on). This way I can press the Rig footswitch once and effectively toggle as many effects on or off at the same time along with adjusting other effect setting parameters to taste. Thus Morph functions like a second "scene" within the Rig. For example, in the base state I could have a drive's mix at 0% and an EQ at 100%, then reverse their values in the morph state (or anywhere between the extremes of 0 to 100)

    This way, I have 5 completely independent rigs, each with an instantly accessible 2nd scene, requiring a single press on the same 5 front row of footswitches to access the morph/2nd scene. That's ten combinations with at most a double press of a front row footswitch.

    If I need MORE combos of effects than those ten combinations, only then do I bother assigning effect blocks to the 2nd row footswitches.

    Another thing I do to maximize effect combinations of effects is to utilize the ducking parameter on delays (around 1.5) and sometimes the reverb a touch (around 1.0). If there's one thing that would otherwise make me "need" to create more Rigs, it's getting the ambience right for different parts of songs or situations. In most situations I find I don't really need or even want different delay algorithms or settings of the delay in the same song, in most case just a mix adjustment of the delay in question would do the trick. Specifically when I'm playing a busier strumming pattern, I'd need the mix a tad lower and less busy picking needs the mix a higher. By utilizing ducking, I don't have toggle back and forth as it adapts musically to my playing. With these rather low ducking settings, the delay diminishes just the right amount automatically when I need it to without being really obvious that something is being turned on and off, quite aside from less tap dancing.

    • New

    Thanks for keeping the conversation going.

    Keep in mind, I'm not trying to solve any current problem, or find a way to do something with the current capability. I was just trying to suggest what might be done with the existing hardware, keeping within the available slots. 4 pre slots, Amp, Cab and 4 post slots. Fewer on the Player. Not really a problem, but as I described in the Dual overdrives and a few EQ scenario, it's not that hard to just sometimes run out of room.

    Maybe another way to think of it is like a Buss in a DAW. you can assign multiple effects in a Buss and enable/disable by turn the buss on or off. So, in the Kemper, I thought of it as assigning an EQ and Distortion to the A slot(buss). All effects on A would either be on or off by the state of the A button. In that scenario I'd effectively have an EQ and Distortion on A, and still the B, C, D available.

    If DSP or latency was a significant issue, then no, certainly it wouldn't be a good idea. And I can see the possible issue of going too far if every Kemper slot allowed stacks in that way. Like someone trying two complex delays or harmonizers on every slot, just because they could. That led to my alternate suggestion of maybe optionally adding extending parameters instead. Maybe a bit more limited, but if there were for instance a way you could add EQ type parameters in the various drives, that would accomplish the same thing I just described. Or Tremolo/Compressor, Chorus/Delay. and so on, for any pairs that might logically be used together as if on one buss. Actually, the Kemper has already done this with High and Low cut. Don't really remember where it started out, but now it's just parameters in some EQ's, the CAB module and in Output. Really just parameters in those 3 places.

    I can't see any way that would require hardware changes or particularly complex learning curves. Doesn't seem like it would break anything already there. It just seems like some possible ideas to extend things a bit more. Only Kemper can know if it within the capability of the hardware or anywhere in sync with their long-term plans.

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    Cmbrowns: tell me what you think of this idea. I had proposed this a while back.

    How about an 8-band EQ before and/or after the amp section? But make it part of the amp section. You'd essentially have the ability to add the their very musical 8-band EQ after the D slot and/or before the X slot. You can achieve the same EQ now by placing the EQ in the D or X slot, but of course at the expense of losing one of your 8 effects slots. This would also have an organizational benefit, aside from saving effects slots for something else.

    I find from an organizational standpoint, I use EQs to shape the overall sound of a profile. At that time I'm not worried about getting the ambience right or adding other effects. I'm just sculpting the basic tone. As such, it makes sense to save such EQ settings as part of the PROFILE, along with other amp settings such as it's basic bass/mid/trem/pres and the KPA's special controls things like definition and clarity. That way, if I have a Rig with a certain combination of other effects, I can bring a new profile along with all its saved EQ settings into another Rig. Put another way, it makes a lot of sense to be able to save all the EQ settings I want to make to a profile as part of the profile itself, not just the Rig a profile resides. Some guitarists, like me, tend to organize along the lines of specific effects chains that will stay the same, but later experiment with a different profile.

    Something like this might not be a benefit for what you are trying to do in terms of being able to toggle options within a particular effects slot. The closest you can get now with the current OS is to create effects presets which can be manually added to a Rig as needed.

    • New

    Yes, I'd agree.

    It's a little less ambitious than what I was describing, but still with a lot of benefit. It still has the potential to free some slots for real effects while upgrading the amp and output EQ tuning. Many of the Tone Junkie profiles have a Pre and Post EQ (but taking up two slots) and they really help in polishing the amp tone, which is the real strength of the Kemper to begin with.

    Hopefully the Kemper folks see the value as well.

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    What really bothers me is that in the Rig Manager the slots only say Kemper Drive and not the selected distortion. You always have to check what kind of distortion is activated, which is a shame.
    • New
    Quote from reto64
    Code
    What really bothers me is that in the Rig Manager the slots only say Kemper Drive and not the selected distortion. You always have to check what kind of distortion is activated, which is a shame.

    Kemper drives go farther than simple modeling drives. It encompass many kind of drives.

    The choices mean, it's set to correspond to a specific kind of drive but if you play with drive/definition/slimdown, parameters ; a TS-9 can be turn into a Klon.... Profiler can't change drive's name following what you do... The opposite can work....

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    Quote from Steve5478

    Kemper drives go farther than simple modeling drives. It encompass many kind of drives.

    The choices mean, it's set to correspond to a specific kind of drive but if you play with drive/definition/slimdown, parameters ; a TS-9 can be turn into a Klon.... Profiler can't change drive's name following what you do... The opposite can work....

    It possible that some future update could allow it to display the last selected effects preset instead of the effect model, but as you said, the preset name only has relevance if you don't touch the settings. If you use had started with a TS-9 preset and then tweak as you mentioned to more of a klon setting, having the display say TS-9 t would be misleading. That said, I could see how someone might want the option for their effects slots to display the last chosen preset. If so, that would be a them problem if they heavily edit a selected preset so that it's sound and settings no longer has any coorelation to the preset named display. For those of us that would just prefer to remember what was what and see only the effect name, we'd leave this proposed display setting off by default.

    I always thought, if I have so many rigs that I can't remember how I set them up, I'm probably trying to regularly utilize too many rigs for my own good. If I come across a Rig and have no idea what the starting point was for a particular effect in one of the slots, if it's important enough to me to know, I can always save it as a new effects preset, then explore some of the other presets of that effect model and see if it's the same or close. Put another way, if it's important enough for me to know the name of the effect preset I had previously selected, it's probably worth the few minutes it would take to locate in manually.